Monthly archives "October"

Kind of obvious, but I was stoked to see D’Onofrio officially on board in DD S03, especially given the kind of underwhelming, if classic, Born Again plotline. It gives me at LEAST a Kingpin to enjoy.

If Gareth Evans does indeed sign on to Deathstroke, that means if nothing else a kick ass fight film. Which seems appropriate.

The full Runaways trailer shows some powers, familiar looks, and at least do far isn’t ruining any major surprises comic fans would know.

The new Justice League trailer shows Steppenwolf more fully. I wasn’t going to watch, then I realized I’d be overseas when it comes out so things will be spoiled anyway…

Um. I mean, I’d still buy one. I love that stuff. But hey, bonuses I guess.

Zachary Levi has been confirmed as playing Captain Marvel, I mean SHAZAM I guess at this point, which I’m enjoying. I like the actor, and I think he can bulk up to where it needs to be, as John Krasinski and Chris Prat did. It will be interesting to see if we get a young Billy Batson, or an older one in keeping with the apparent continuity of the DCEU. My favorite of the fan art that came out early this week is above.

I don’t watch Supergirl or any of the CW super shows… but wow… check out the costume for new villain ‘Reign’… that’s realllllly badly envisioned. A chattering skull in a super sigil logo on a black version of Supergirl’s costume, plus a Hot Topic mask? GUH.

Paramount has been auctioning off costumes and props from the recent Star Trek film. I haven’t talked mush about ST: Discovery yet, as I’m waiting for my cohorts to watch it so we can discuss on the podcast, but one positive, at least in part, has been the overhaul of the Klingon designs. Seeing these Klingon armors, especially the helms, makes me even happier with the show.

He was answering more broadly about his willingness to return to Marvel for another film, not specifically a Black Widow film, but Taika Waititi noted he’d like to see a funny Black Widow. I don’t doubt he’d pull it off, one of those ‘she’s the straight face with lots of eye rolling and groaning at the incompetence of everyone else’ type projects… but I still just want my urgent spy thriller.

Our review and discussion (and befuddlement at trying to map out the plotline after seeing it in the middle of the night) of Blade Runner 2049 is forthcoming on the podcast, but this was interesting: they considered making it a two part 4 hour film. There is a definite divide in the narrative, indeed each half begins with the eye, etc. I’m glad they took it the direction they did, though.

Why does BRIGHT look like it’s working? It shouldn’t work. No one asked for a Shadowrun buddy cop drama. No one asked for Shadowrun, period. And yet.

meanwhile, GET THAT ROOT:

Surprising precisely no one, Captain Marvel will be in Avengers 4. I’m really intrigued about all this. Time travel? Skrullery? Also coming back: Ty Kimpson or similar, the kid from IM3… I’m again smelling time-travel rewriting of history. And good lors, Ben Mendelsohn being courted for the leader of the Skrulls ARE YOU KIDDING ME TAKE MY MONEY.

Geez. I haven’t seen War of the Planet of the Tole yet, but want to. Probably on the plane next week to Singapore. Anyway, apparently poor Malcolm from the previous film (Jason ‘John Connor’ Clarke) met an unseemly end off camera.

I’m a weirdo Monopoly guy. I’m not great at the game or anything like those super-committed players, I just like the boards and the mechanics of it, easy to start and stop thegame with the kids, and I love to collect the genre franchise editions. I’m not allowed to buy any more. Lucky for me this handmade Harry Potter set was a one-off and not for sale. ha!

Now you TOO can make Deckard’s monocular from Blade Runner 2049… assuming you have a sweet 3D printer. If not, why don’t you. Meanwhile, Adam Savage tours the Blade Runner 2049 set and I want to go to there.

Some great ideas for Halloween themed treats here. Short answer: everything is possible with skull shaped molds.

This is an odd duck but I liked it. This Steam game produces highly realistic physics and destruction in this car simulator builder app. Think Burnout but crossed with those web apps where you launch a body at things. Anyway, of course the internet got involved, and there’s a whole culture of players posting themed youtube videos, like ‘vehicles chained together’ and ‘spectacular heavy semi truck crashes’… anyway, I was enjoying this one, featuring the results of a track of 100 closely spaced speed bumps taken at speed. Really pretty fascinating. There are some amazing crashes in it.

Plus, bonus, I’d like to note that the 4Runner only wiped out in the last 10′ or so. My link above is specifically pointing at the 4Runner run, which, by the way, is at approximately 3:33 into the video DAMN!

Aquaman is wearing some cool armor in these pics from the solo film production. Mera’s green is greener. AND she’s holding what looks like a gauntlet. HOOKS are happening.

All the hoopla about the Robot Wars thing is silly. They’re just tractors with shit welded to them. I will say this: no overturning moment resistance? That’s just silly.

Jason Battersby’s concept for a Tie Fighter redesign (above) is honestly the sort of thing I wish we were getting in the new films. We’ve been seeing designs that admittedly do like they play in the SW universe, design wise, but they are strangely angular and crushed looking, not really feeling like three decade later evolutions of these concepts. But check THESE out. Witness all my desktop screens after I rotate through my Blade Runner stuff. Amaze.

Lastly, something I REALLY like, seen in both the second Last jedi trailer (below) and then later in the trailer for SW: Battlefront II: something I’ve demanded since I was a wee lad, a glance at the manufacturing and delivery of the AT-ATs. The former, Last Jedi, and the latter, in the game footage, as ships are seen carrying AT-ATs into orbit the way my kids carry one of our cats. YUSS

We have already enjoyed Jeff Goldblum randomizing during Q&A sessions… here’s a stupendous summary for Ragnarok (7 seconds over the limit)

While I still have no time to play video games, I’m super into Star Wars Battlefront II. Even more so, every new trailer…

Welp, not sure what choice they had at this point that wasn’t going to feel right, but Netflix is releasing Punisher on Nov. 17. So we still have pain over mass shootings, but now passing Halloween and slipping into the holiday season. It is what it is. Some argue there’s never a good time for this project.

Here’s a breakdown of that Black Panther trailer… so many great details, from the vanes on the Talon ship, to the way they resolved Klaw’s arm.

Lung reminded me recently that Del Toro is doing a biopic of Michael Mann. That might frustrate Del Toro fans who want big gothic horror fantasy films, but you know how I feel about the subject, I reckon.

Interesting nods from Jason Momoa about Aquaman’s situation in JL, somewhat ringing true with what we’ve seen in the trailers, if not the imagery in Luthor’s handy powerpoint presentation.

So, uh, now New Mutants is a trilogy. A horror sampler trilogy. Set in the modern day, BTW, for you X-Men film continuity students. If you saw the first trailer the other day, you know what they’re going after.

Deadpool 2 and Dark Phoenix have wrapped, but all that matters are those swords.

Kevin Fiege is working pretty hard to convince us that after Avengers 4 the MCU will be reset. I mean, it might. But also, it might not. Nod, shrug, wink!

Meanwhile, he also corroborated a story that the female actors in the MCU cornered him and asked for a female-driven Marvel film, and he agreed. Because what are you going to say at that point, even if it wasn’t already in the works…

I lasted 12 hours before caving (under pressure from One Lung) and watching the new trailer. Yes, spoilery bits are involved… but only if you BELIEVE what you are seeing.

One hell of a poster, tho…

Meanwhile, that Robot’s Root!

Infinity War Iron Man armor upgrades include vanes off the back and transforming cannons etc etc the former of which I love in concept and the latter of which I don’t. But there you go. Don’t get me started on that Spidey suit.

Supposedly Hulk has a major arc through the next three films, which I like to hear. Especially if its, you know, not involving Maestro, Banner/Hulk separation, Skarr, or any of that other stuff. I wouldn’t mind him going gray though. For science.

These speculative Star Wars scenes from a recent Artstation challenge are pretty excellent. My favorite is lurkin’ up on SLAVE 1, close second being the Rebel soldier captured with the lightsabered head in the foreground.

That’s all for today. I’m heading out, hoping not to see 33 posts about Porgs tonight. GAH TOO LATE.

Emerson Tung is an illustrator I’ve been following for years, and I’ve posted his work here before. I was struck by how he casually solves the modern Transformers movie problem: let the tech in the transforming bits be complicated if you need to to make it parse, but leave the body panels and such along, and anachronistic enough that you look at it and think ‘car robot’…

Meanwhile, that Robot’s Root:

I’m super down with the new Mondo art book… I love their poster work and this looks to be a nice collection.

The New Justice league trailer as a bit of plot in it, which is nice. I’m not sure I’d want to be the one to cover Bowie, but they tried. My buddy Ryan pointed out last night how confusing it is that Aquaman has a good ole boy slash surfer situation going on. I like it. But when he makes me THINK about it, it’s an interesting choice. I think they just let Momoa be Momoa just Momaing about. Here’s an international version with more ‘yee-a-UH!’ in it. Actually, no, less of it. But I like the theme music in the second trailer, and I wonder (optimistically) if it’s real.

I’m not convinced on the Mosaic project on HBO. A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure film by Soderbergh… eh. Feels like a video game.

You may recall that awesome short, Adam, done on the Unity engine backbone, by Neil Blomkamp? Here’s a sequel.

New X-Files S11 trailer has me shrugging. I realize, the last season was so random and disjointed (released in wrong broadcast order etc) and I had sort of forgotten about the hot mess they left it in. Anyway, all the ballyhoo from S10 was basically that their return to creature of the week format was the high point, and the serialized conspiracy eps the lowest. Now, I happen to love the conspiracy stuff… but I can’t imagine they targeted me specifically for S11… so huh.

The early reviews of Thor look very promising. Of course, that’s just about whether it will be good, not whether it will do well at the box office. I mean, Thor will. Blade Runner scores extremely high on Rotten Tomatoes and will be tanking (understandably) but I think Thor will have legs. They are very different animals. Speaking of, this is gorgeous.

I’m not sure that these photos are indicative of anything (other than that the poster doesn’t know the difference between an arm sleeve and a tattoo sleeve) but I do like the idea that for one reason or another Hawkeye will become Ronin. If that happens.

Ridley Scott says the next Alien film will be more about AI action than xenomorphs. I welcome it entirely. “I think the evolution of the Alien himself is nearly over, but what I was trying to do was transcend and move to another story, which would be taken over by A.I.’s. The world that the AI might create as a leader if he finds himself on a new planet. We have actually quite a big layout for the next one.”

Gore Verbinski MAY be on board for directing Gambit. That could be good or bad, depending on what you think of the director, and what he thinks of the material, because he’s pretty uneven in my opinion. I was so MEH on this project until I saw the synopsis. Now I want it to succeed.

Super bad luck on the Punisher release timing. I mean, the BAD LUCK is the horrible tragedy in Vegas, but I mean, tough time to release this project. Last time I posted about it they were delaying the screeners, but now the whole project may be pushed back. And probably should.

I’m a nerd, so I loved this: Hot Toys released a version of Boba Fett from the X-Mas Special. Believe it or not (believe it) I have this on my to-draw queue. HAHAHA. Now the ref material got 1,000x better.

If you liked Crank, you may be the target market for Happy on the Sy-Fy channel… I’m not sure where I stand on it. I like that it exists…

I wasn’t initially particularly interested in the Phillip K Dick anthology being cooked up. I don’t much like anthologies (though I make them out of necessity)… but having seen the promo, I’m intrigued…

Lastly, the Runaways full trailer still smacks of teen soap and doesn’t have the vibe I’m hoping for. EXCEPT. All the word of mouth is positive. So, maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised…

That’s all for today. Just sitting here pounding refresh on my alamo drafthouse page waiting for those Star Wars tickets…

Hm. This throws everything we agreed upon on the podcast about Gal Gadot’s pronunciation out the window. Or through the wall.

BAD TIMING. So Punisher screenings have been postponed at NYCC and other venues for obvious reasons. Reminds me of how the theater shooting cored Dark Knight’s box office, but of course, in this case, the content of the movie is a bit close to home.

I don’t know if I like or dislike these ALL IN posters, but at least we’re seeing JL people running or moving without looking like a bad paste-up splash page… which the previous ones actually were. I just want all the Batmans.

I’m dying. “Do you enjoy the sensation of petting a cat or dog, but hate the unconditional love and the fact that they have heads and limbs?”

I follow HardTimes, an Onion-style site but for punk rock etc etc and sometimes random tertiary posts crack me up even more than the music stuff, like this one, which was ACCURATE.

Finally, as I head out to an extremely, EXTREMELY late showing of Blade Runner 2049, I thought I’d post this nice roundup on the production of the original, courtesy of Vanity Fair. I’ve got books on the topic at home, being a supernerdfan, but this was a good encapsulation.

Also, this is purportedly the moment Ford accidentally connected with Gosling while filming the one scene.

I enjoyed Lucy. For all of it’s logic faults, it was a return to form for what Besson does best. Sequel still in the works, according to a recent shareholders meeting. Interesting though that the budget is being compressed after Valerian tanked. Which I still need to see.

Even though american audiences are unlikely to be familiar with most of these properties, some part of me loves the idea of these (maybe) out of continuity mashups of the different characters in a given company’s catalog. Reminds me of the Capcom fighting games, or some of those weird cartoons from the 70s where everyone is in the same cannonball run style derby. Plus, Gatchaman!

And so it follows: a few days after WB/DC insisted in interviews that their movies weren’t necessarily part of a cohesive universe after all, now Universal is taking the same approach, after the collapse of the Mummy, insisting that Bride of Frankenstein will be a standalone film. Huh.

Mako Mori is back in Pacific Rim Uprising, which is good news, since I always planned on drawing Rinko Kikuchi in that Jaeger piloting gear… for reasons.

I’m so down for DARK is isn’t even funny. I mean, it really isn’t. At all. It’s scary as hell. But I loves me some time horror.

I’ve been posting con cosplay type photos to our IG account and whoa I just got to SFCC day 02. HAHAHAHAHAHHAH sob